Nov 11, 2009

Zero-mile Bread


We weeded the plot, planted the grain, weeded some more, harvested the grain, threshed it (beat it in a pillow case), winnowed it, milled it, and baked it. Bread just don't get no more local or delicious or rewarding as this loaf.

To ask about the price compared to a Saskatchewan bag of flour entirely misses the point. We can grow grain here, right here on our land. We can be part of the production of our most basic food stuffs - wheat, quinoa, oats, amaranth, emmer... It doesn't have to come loaded with carbon karma from far away, doesn't have to be the child of a world-damaging small-farm-destroying mono-crop Big Ag, doesn't have to be processed in a protein-destroying high-heat factory, doesn't have to be a watered-down version of the once-nutrient-packed grains our grandparents grew and grew up on.

Anyone who's ever eaten something they've grown and processed and cooked themselves knows that nothing compares. The only revelation here is that bread and oats and grains don't have to be any different. We've been brainwashed to believe that only the prairies can produce grains. Thanks to Brock and Heather's brave experiment at Makaria Farms, we are among 50 families on Vancouver Island who now know differently.

1 comment:

  1. Rick, there are very few things on the internet that make me happier than reading your blog. I get beautiful little bits of your lives... and I love every inspiring word! Thank you, my friend.

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